


a circle of quiet

by Celesma



Category: Supernatural
Genre: And a little bit unsympathetic to Dean, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Lucifer's Cage, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Kissing, Sam and Cas work out some issues, Sam validation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 18:43:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1789261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celesma/pseuds/Celesma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam Winchester has seen a lot of shit. But nothing could have prepared him for the moment when Castiel, his eyes dazzling like bright blue gems, turned to him and pressed a kiss to his cheek. (Takes place during some unspecified time period after Hunter Heroici.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	a circle of quiet

**Author's Note:**

> As with the last fic, Madeleine L'Engle references abound. I have no shame.
> 
> This isn't intended to be romantic, but you're entirely welcome to read it as pre-slash if you like. :)

Sam's seen a lot of things. _Been_ a lot of things. He remembers screaming as he watched his girlfriend burn to death on the ceiling of his dorm room. Remembers the intolerable burning sensation spreading through his chest as Jake's knife slid between his ribs and pierced his heart, ending his life. Remembers – even – the cold fingers of horrified realization that crept up his spine and gripped his skull tight, threatening to crush it into wet chunks like a grapefruit, as Lucifer was unleashed from his Cage (passive voice: the correct phrasing there was _as Sam unleashed Lucifer from his Cage_ ). He remembers the moment he descended into the Cage himself, and how he came back minus one immortal soul. Bottom line: Sam Winchester has been through some shit.

But nothing, _nothing_ could have prepared him for the moment when Castiel, his eyes dazzling like bright blue gems, turned to him with an unusually determined expression and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

It happened so quickly and with so little preamble that Sam almost didn't register the feeling of Cas's lips on his skin. It was nice and cool and made him think a bit of what it must have been like when his mother kissed him as a baby.

He stared, at a complete loss.

" _Dude_. A little explanation?"

Cas arched an eyebrow: an expression he'd picked up from Dean. "Was that not sufficiently comforting?" he asked.

He leaned forward to do it again, but Sam held him off with one arm.

"You want to _comfort_ me? I – well, _why_?"

"Because you require comforting." Cas said this as if Sam was being particularly imbecilic. And well, maybe he _was_ , but that still didn't mean he wasn't going to try to get an explanation out of the angel that made at least a modicum of sense. He also found it a bit disturbing insofar as he _knew_ Cas been coached on matters of personal space long enough to know that kissing your same-sex friend like he was your child wasn't typically appropriate behavior (unless said friend _wanted_ to be kissed... which he was not at all certain he didn't, now that he thought about it. Those wonderful spates of physical contact he'd shared with Jess and Amelia were nevertheless spates, separated the rest of the time by wide gulfs of loneliness and isolation, gulfs that hadn't gotten any easier to bear now that Dean was back). He was hungering, thirsting for intimacy – and somehow Castiel knew that.

"Is this because of Amelia?" he asked, because he realized that Cas had sort of been there that whole time he'd been forced to come to grips with the fact that a relationship between him and a normal (okay, _broken_ , actually, but still comparatively normal) woman would never work. He still missed her fiercely and sometimes caught himself mourning her as if she'd died like Jess – as if she'd died _bad_ like Jess.

"Part of it is," Cas allowed, very gently, as if Sam was made of glass and his words might break him. "But there are things you don't know, Sam, that you should."

"What things?"

"You should know that your brother loves you. Very much."

"I... okay?" Last time he checked, that wasn't supposed to be an earth-shattering revelation or anything. Hell, Dean had reminded him enough times that everything he did, everything he _was_ , was for Sam's benefit alone. Although lately, yeah, he guessed he'd been feeling pretty unloved, but how would Cas even know –

 _The same way he knows everything – with his **Grace** , of course. Because he's an angel. You idiot._  
  
As had been the case for several years now, the word "angel" had unbelievably negative connotations for Sam, although it still took heavy adjusting at times to reacclimate his worldview to one where not only did angels _not_ look out for you (as he'd firmly believed for the first twentysomething years of his life, as a way of sustaining himself through all his learned helplessness and codependency and self-loathing), they were pretty much huge dicks. Also, God didn't "work for the good of those who love Him, called according to His purpose" – because there _was_ no divine purpose (and probably no God). But most especially, he'd been abused and violated by the angels – creatures he'd once liked to imagine with great crashing wings that made the oceans boil and the continents pull apart, more _drive of dragons_ than baby-faced cherubs – more times than he could count.

Angels have _hurt_ Sam. He didn't like to think about it (and often didn't these days), but he'd been so crushed after that first meeting with Cas and Uriel. Uriel could barely stand to look at him, and while Cas's reception had been much warmer, he clearly only saw the younger Winchester in terms of _here is the boy with the demon blood, the one who might help engineer the ruin of the world_ (and oh hey, look, he was _right_ ). The whole "prepared to smite a town full of innocent people" thing had gone even further in cementing his disillusionment, but it was those initial moments of rejection that stayed with him.

(And while he would never admit to it consciously, Sam was just a little bit scared of Castiel. A little bit distrustful. Not because Cas wasn't good – because he _was_. Even after everything he'd done and become, a lot of that old-timey angel holiness had remained in him. And Sam and Holiness went together like orange juice and toothpaste. Sometimes in the heat of battle, he would feel Cas's Grace knifing through a demon soul – or, God, another _angel_ , even – and nearly fall to his knees screaming, because that ruthless spike of energy had all the hallmarks of Lucifer in it, felt just like every single glacial burn the Morningstar had lovingly branded into every inch of his skin, using nothing more than the tips of his own fingers. He could remember his lips moving in a mockery of the free will he'd given up everything to maintain, forming the words

 _Your brother was raised from perdition, was he? Well, I'm here to tell you, Sammy. These marks are the proof that you're_ _ **mine.**_ _You're my cattle. My sheep. My_ _ **bitch.**_ _Perdition? Is just another name for your pen._  
  
His older brother had never seemed to notice things like that, but then that was Dean. _He_ had the luxury to piss and moan when Cas didn't come down on command or mutter to himself about "that feathery fuckface," but Sam knew he had no such grounds to stand on. He wasn't even qualified enough to fend off Dean's – admittedly, justified – physical and verbal assaults whenever the older Winchester was pissed with him.)

He felt Cas's Grace burning towards him as if the angel needed to reascertain Sam's emotional state, and for an instant it was so piercingly cold that he moaned and flinched away. Cas frowned and for a moment Sam worried that he had been offended, but then he realized that Castiel was irritated with himself. He forced himself to remain still as the angel gradually increased the temperature of that ethereal, incomprehensible substance, until finally the fingers that brushed away Sam's bangs and drew light patterns on his forehead conveyed nothing but warmth and kindness. There was something painfully familiar in the gesture and Sam wondered if Cas had done something like this when he'd come to get him from the Cage. That made Sam feel a little better, knowing that Cas had rescued him from that place of horrors, that he wasn't still being whittled down, little by little, into an empty screaming shell of himself.

"And your brother is not the only one," Cas said softly, as if he knew what Sam was thinking (and yeah, probably he _did_ ). "I love you too, Sam. You know that, don't you?"

Sam was silent for long moments as the angel continued to draw complicated patterns on his face; after a minute had passed he realized they were Enochian sigils, symbols for wellbeing and safekeeping: the opposite of the litany of curses and profane markings that Lucifer had carved into him. He struggled to swallow. "Cas, I... I don't know what I should say."

"There's nothing you need to say," Cas reassured him. He brushed light fingertips to the hunter's nose, causing him to reflexively wiggle it, and Sam couldn't suppress the ghost of a smile that flitted across his face. "I don't get the impression that you mind this sort of contact," Cas went on to add. "Am I correct?"

"I..." Sam hesitated for a brief eternity, an eternity that encompassed _apocalypse_ _hell purgatory the entirety of this broken sin-stained world_ , and then all of a sudden the words were pouring from his mouth like hot oil. "Of _course_ I mind, Cas! Because I don't _deserve_ any of this. I'm the Antichrist, remember? Screwed around with a demon, started the Apocalypse, lost my soul and ruthlessly mowed down anyone who stood in my way? Shit, I didn't even bother to go looking for you in Purgatory, and after you'd taken on all my pain and suffering – "

"You never owed me that." Castiel was quiet as he spoke. "Not after what I did to you."

It was something they'd never discussed, but more for Dean's sake than because they didn't _want_ to discuss it; Dean was notoriously incapable of forgiving those who trespassed against him or his family, and so his policy was to let sleeping dogs lie, which the other two members of Team Free Will had done their best to honor. But Dean wasn't here now, and –

"I could have done anything other than what I did," Castiel continued, his every syllable shaking with grief. "I could have removed your memory of my betrayal, I could have taken you far away – "

"You didn't _betray_ us, Cas. You were cornered, you felt trapped – "

"You're kind, Sam. But you're wrong." Cas smiled sadly. "And it doesn't begin to touch the removal of your Wall. That is something I could never begin to explain away or mitigate with my words. I have no excuse."

"Cas, no offense, but you're being stupid." Sam sighed and offered his cheek to Cas, his resistance temporarily muted. He closed his eyes as the angel's fingers drifted down to the delicate hollow, drinking in the feelings of _smallness_ they conferred upon him (Sam had spent his whole life trying to be small, to not take up space, but this was good, this was safety and acceptance). "If you're so angelic and all-knowing, then you should know that I love you too and I don't blame you for what happened. I just... have a really shitty way of showing it, I guess."

"If that is true, then I am ten times as guilty," Cas insisted, in his typical biblical hyperbole fashion. "Your faith was always a beautiful thing, Sam. The fact that you lost it because of me – because of what I was, what I _am_ – is one of my greatest regrets."

"I still pray," Sam corrected him quickly. "I don't know why, but I still do. Heck, I even still read the Bible sometimes. Usually just the red highlighted bits in the New Testament – I mean, you can't go too wrong with Jesus no matter _what_ you believe – but... well. It's not easy to just dump all that down the drain. I mean, you know what that's like, right?"

Castiel looked at him, almost awed, as if he were in the presence of a particularly impressive archangel. Then he nodded slowly.

"Yes. I do pray to Him, still. Despite my better judgment."

Sam smiled. "So we're both a couple of idiots, then? Is that the take-away from this heart-to-heart?"

"I believe so." Cas returned his smile. "But I think the more important lesson is that we both need to start forgiving ourselves."

"I don't know if I can do that, Cas." Sam bowed his head. When he brought it back up Cas was leaning into his space, looking at Sam intently. The hunter would have been more weirded out but for the fact that the blue in his eyes was warm, like the color of the sky after a rainstorm. He felt safe in them. "But if you promise to try to forgive yourself, then I guess I can too."

"I can try... and perhaps with the grace of God, I will succeed." This said, Cas tilted his head bashfully. "Would you mind, Sam, if I kissed you some more?"

Sam nearly refused. After all, he already felt so good, and he didn't deserve to feel anything more (if even he deserved to feel _this_ )... but Cas was regarding him with an earnest, almost innocent expression, and he didn't want to dash the angel's hopes. Comforting Sam was something Cas needed as much as Sam did.

"You want to be my own personal Aunt Beast, go right ahead," he told him.

"I don't understand that reference," Cas said. "But it sounds like a good thing."

"It's from a book," Sam said. "And it is. A good thing, I mean."

"Thank you," Castiel said. And then: "I will never hurt you again, Sam. I promise."

As he spoke those words a ribbon of light emerged from his back, pulsing with varying, multicolored hues that faded in and out of existence (and despite his stated aversion to the Old Testament, Sam couldn't help but be reminded of the promise rainbow God had created in the aftermath of the worldwide Flood) before resolving into a solid dark mass of wings, and Castiel wrapped them around Sam's neck, the kiss of each feather on his skin as gentle as Lucifer's had been not. Sam quickly shut his eyes, possessed of the (not altogether unwarranted) idea that witnessing any part of Castiel's true form would spell bad news for the state of his eyeballs. As it turned out this was a decision well-founded, as an instant later Cas's lips alighted upon his eyelids, finding each lash, warming Sam's skin with gentle puffs of breath and bearing him to a simpler time, one that remained out of memory's reach but which he was sure must have existed for him at one point, even if he _was_ a monster. A contented sigh escaped Sam's lips and he fell into the cradle formed by Castiel's wings, feeling himself beginning to wade into that strange half-conscious stage between waking and dreaming.

It was hard to believe that anyone or anything would ever care about Sam to this degree – almost as hard to believe that such a ruthless, alien creature could at the same time have such a traditionally angelic capacity for tenderness – but Sam had faith in a lot of things, including the God he'd turned his back on, and the angel he'd turned his back on God _for_. He knew that he would continue to believe in the impossible, as he always had. He couldn't help himself.

As these thoughts passed through his mind he heard Castiel muttering words of Enochian into his ear (he recognized the command to _sleep and dream and be well, beloved of God_ ), and soon he was soundly asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Tangentially related, but it's my headcanon that Sam loved the Time Quintet as a kid (faith and angels and metaphysics, oh my!).


End file.
